Life Cycles
by Carnivalgirl
Summary: All of Jacques's family and friends have theories about where his interest in botany comes from. All of them are right, in their ways. But there is also one other reason only he and Sonia know. Inspired by 'Human Traces' by Sebastian Faulks.


A/N: I don't know if anyone will be reading this, so if you are reading, thank you! This book really captured my heart, particularly the story of Jacques and Sonia, who go through so much together but have these moments of emotional distance. I had to write about them. Once again, thanks for giving this a read, and please let me know what you think.

All of Jacques Rebière's friends and family had ideas about where his interest in botany had come from. Thomas theorised that it was a way for him to return to his roots; in their social position now they were rarely obliged to think on the welfare of plants, but somewhere in Jacques's heart was the farm boy whose entire life had been devoted to them. Kitty's idea was that it was a way for him to rest his mind, which, though she rarely expressed her observations aloud, seemed to her to be constantly overworked. Plants were simpler than human beings. Hans was inclined to agree, though he said with a certain ironic tone that a man just needed time alone, particularly if middle age was creeping up on him.

All of them were right, in their ways, but there was also one other reason for it that only he and Sonia knew, and, according to their habits, has no plans to disclose.

It had begun on a sunny afternoon not long after they first moved to Austria. Jacques had a break between appointments with patients, and he went over to the window to have a cigarette. His practise room overlooked the garden, which Thomas had made sure was resplendent with vivid, blooming flowers that crowded the edges of their beds. The lawn was as perfectly trimmed as any English country home, and furnished with the same dear little tables and chairs and croquet hoops. His mind at rest, he started to watch a little blackbird hop across the grass when he spotted his wife emerging from the main doors downstairs.

Sonia had a light shawl over her shoulders and her head was bowed, but the light formed a ring around her hair. Jacques felt a rush of nostalgia for the days at Deauville, when he had watched her in the pension's garden for as long as possible until someone noticed and he had had to duck his head in a book. How far they had come! He stood up with a sudden urge to run down and embrace her, but when he looked back at her, he noticed she was crying. From this distance he could see that she had her face in her hands, and as a few more seconds passed it was obvious she was deeply upset. She only moved once, and that was to wipe her face.

He had a duty to consider the situation from a husband's point of view as well as a doctor's, yet either way he could not, at first, think of anything that might have upset her. She ought to have been quite happy. They had finally moved home, and they had not a room but an entire apartment to call their own; she was reunited with her brother; she had work to occupy her, and she was already making friends in the town.

Something must have happened. Perhaps she had had bad news from England, or an upsetting encounter with a patient. It had to be something significant, he knew, as she wasn't the type to weep for any sentimental event, like little goats getting trapped in ravines. She had no physical complaints. That morning she had admitted she was bleeding especially heavily that month, but even then she had seemed her usual self, if a little subdued.

He suddenly thought of a certain possibility, and he turned around sharply away from the window as if to ignore it, but the idea took root all too quickly.

Would not at least one if not multiple people have come to her aid? Not if it had happened while she was alone, or at night. It was possible that it could have happened slowly enough for her to manage it alone. Would she not have needed rest? Would she not be in pain? Of course she would, but she had work to do now and it was like her to go on with it even if it caused her physical and emotional strain. He remembered that she really had been very pale and tired that morning, but she'd lead him to put it from his mind.

Would she not have said something to him?

He shuddered. Grief spread through him like a drop of ink into water. If Sonia had indeed - and despite the fact he was a doctor, he found it difficult to sound the words in his mind - miscarried a child, she would not have told him. Her previous husband had deserted her for her inability to bear children, and he, Jacques, had never fully convinced her that he would not do the same. Only this morning, when he had wondered aloud if her heavy bleeding meant a change, he had given away how high his hopes were, and so prevented her from telling him the truth.

He'd been truly, profoundly ignorant. He had probably broken her heart even further. Conscious that he had little time to think before his next appointment, he began to think of what he might say to her, and realised before he could finish his cigarette that he didn't know where to begin. He could hold her, kiss her, tell her how he lived for her and loved her whatever obstacles they faced, but would she believe that in her heart? How could he know this was what she wanted to hear?

He looked out at Sonia again. She was crouching to examine the climbing flowers he only knew as _hortensia grimpant_, reaching out her hands to them and holding them still. She liked to let the petals spread over her fingers, he had seen her do it in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. He supposed, hoped, she was no longer crying as much as she had. A moment later a small party of nurses and patients appeared, and the spell seemed to break. She stood up, paused for a moment to smile and exchange greetings, then turned and walked rapidly back into the hospital.

They were coming up to their fourth wedding anniversary. In all those years, she had given him all the time and space he could need to work and think, and simply to be alone. He had a critical need for it; he could not analyse his deeper feelings with interruptions. He knew she had a similar nature, she seemed to understand it so readily. But at this point in her life, she had found no space to confront her own emotions. If only the garden was theirs alone.

He stood up suddenly. But of course they could have one! There was plenty of space, enough to fence off a portion. He could easily set up a barrier of stones or a short fence. It could be just beneath the apartment windows, an extension of their little home. It would have to be large enough that they could install a seat, but small enough that they had time to tend it themselves. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he remembered with detail the life cycles of most European plants from his farming days. Research would make up for what he didn't know. With a bit of work, it could be a haven for her.

That evening, he put the suggestion to Thomas, claiming it as a creative pursuit, like Sonia's music and Thomas's Shakespeare. He agreed they could look at fencing off around four square metres of the garden for private household use. Jacques had thought he would tell Sonia that night, once they had retired to bed, but Thomas, seeing no emotional significance in the whole idea, brought it up over dinner.

'Isn't it like Jacques, Queenie, to take up a new scientific field as a way to relax?'

Sonia smiled, and briefly glanced in her husband's direction, but she did not meet his eyes, and it was obvious her mind was elsewhere. As often happened when he thought he had hit upon a good idea, at the last moment he gave serious thought to going back on the whole thing. His meaning could be interpreted entirely differently; she might see the blossoming flowers and fruit as a taunt against her own inability to ripen.

Certainly, the image stuck in her mind, because she mentioned it that evening, when he joined her in bed. The lamplight cast shadows over her face that made her look more severe, and the dark yellow light reminded him of autumn evenings. If he hadn't been thinking so carefully about it he wouldn't have noticed anything different about her.

'That is a wonderful idea, my love, to have our own private garden.'

He slid into bed next to her, and shuffled over to be closer to her. She seemed to draw back slightly as he almost touched her breasts and stomach. He hesitated before he replied.

'I had hoped you would like it. The purpose of it would be to stimulate thought and reflection, if either of us should feel the need to do so.'

He immediately regretted the way he had put that. It sounded far too psychiatric. She was looking into his eyes, as if she were waiting for him to add something.

'So - it's like the hospital garden, but for us alone?'

'Not exactly. Sonia,' He lowered his voice, conveying to her that he could not have said this over dinner, 'I...have no artistic talent to reflect you, I may only add my name to nature's accomplishments, but I will make the greatest effort I can to make you a garden that is deserving of you. And if we ever find ourselves apart -' He didn't dare to say "again", 'we can be reminded of each other there.'

'I see. May I also choose some flowers for it?' she asked him softly.

'Of course. It is yours.'

'Ours.'

'Ours,' he agreed quickly. 'But inspired most by you. You deserve all the beauty that I can grow for you, because you have given so much to me.'

Her eyes had acquired a distinctive shine of tears; they were already a little bloodshot, and it made his own heart ache to see them. He let his hand drift towards hers, their bodies otherwise unusually far apart.

In the silence, he heard her draw a breath, and her lips parted slightly to say something, but she decided against it, and moved her head to rest against the pillow.

'Tell me about it, my dearest,' she said, speaking barely above a whisper. 'What will we be growing?'

So he laced his fingers through hers, and described it to her; they'd have a bed of the hortensia she liked ('Hydrangea', she said), with the petals displaying a spectrum of blue to violet, or red to pink, or both, or all four together, if they could do it. They'd grow delicate little geraniums in dark blue, she remembered some like that from England. Lilacs he would prune so she could press them or use their petals to scent the apartment. Shocking pink azalée ('Azalea'), shocking pink in the spring. He described everything he could imagine, more than they'd ever have room for, until at last he said 'And potentilles across the lawn, Sonia,' and when she did not translate 'cinquefoil' he looked down to see that she was at last asleep, with her head next to his.

They did grow their garden, and Jacques applied the same keen scientific interest to it as he did all of his work, though his more personal observations of Sonia showed that whatever her spirits, she always seemed a little happier, a little stronger when she was there. When they moved to the new home on the mountain, Sonia was worried their little creation, and all the enthusiasm behind it, would be another thing left behind. Instead, they had a second rendition. It was larger, and needed hardier plants like lupines and rock jasmine. They also added a sturdy little garden swing, something they had once thought they would never need.

When Daniel was sixteen, Jacques told him the story of their first garden, making him only the third person to know what had truly inspired it. When he finished the story, he was not surprised to see that Daniel was deep in thought. He was looking out at the flowers with the same scrutiny he had been applying to the mathematics problems they had come outside to practise.

Finally, he said 'If you love Mama so much, why do you -'

Daniel froze. He took in a breath. He held onto his knees, which still seemed too large and bony under his trousers, as if he were still growing. Realising he had no choice but to say what he was thinking, he began again.

'Last week, when I came home from school, Mama asked me if I had seen you. Apparently you'd taken a day of leave, though she hadn't received any notice about it as she normally would. She asked me if there was anything I could think of that might have occasioned it. She said - she was quite anxious.'

Daniel had always been more English than French, and his voice was a masterpiece of restraint. Yet his eyes displayed all the anguish and pain that Sonia could not - or rather, chose not - to show him.

For a long and agonising moment they looked at each other, both desperately wishing the conversation had never started, or needed to be started.

How could he ever explain that love, like any other condition of the mind, did not exist in pure form? That there was no list of actions or values which could be called 'love', and no point at which one could say 'this is not love' or 'this is no longer love, but something else'. How could he expect Daniel to understand, Daniel, who had taken to carrying a copy of Keats everywhere he went, and who was only a year or so younger than Jacques had been when he had first fallen in love with Sonia? Ultimately, did he even believe it himself?

Daniel, imagining he had spoken out of turn, slowly dropped his gaze and began to gather his things.

'I think I'm finished with mathematics, Papa, I'll go in and do some more philosophy.'

He didn't look back as he left, and at once the garden looked very different.

More years passed. Things between him and Roya came to an end, and Sonia revealed, in her own time and in her own way, that she had indeed known about the affair. As for Daniel, whatever he had known, he never admitted. But one day, in a letter addressed to Thomas, Daniel said he was spending the spare time the war afforded him reading Shelley, making friends, and carefully studying Italian mountain plants to tell his father about.

It seemed, just at that time, that everything would be well.


End file.
